Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

It's been noted once or twice that I tend to be very civil in my debate here, even when I strongly disagree. (I can actually be uncivil when I get angry, but people here don't usually do things that make me angry.) I usually don't get dirty and I don't often use words like "stupid". But I think it'd be nice if I made a post just this one time where I don't pull punches. So here goes:

All of us, every single one of us here, believes something stupid.

Not a specific stupid thing, just any stupid thing at all. It doesn't have to be a long-term belief or deep beliefs, like religious beliefs, but it may be something like believing that, I don't know, Mr. Ed was really a zebra. (I was tricked into believing this for a time - http://www.snopes.com/lost/mistered.asp - turns out it was a prank on the part of snopes.com.) "Stupid" is a harsh word, but I'm using it for a reason here: to point out that stupid beliefs don't make stupid people. Even if you believe something that actually happens to be true, I think the belief is stupid if you believe it for the wrong reason. After all, in that case, that it is true is merely coincidental.

And of course there are the beliefs whose truth is uncertain. The truth may seem certain to you or me, but from an objective standpoint, it could be up in the air, like, well, belief in God. I'm an atheist, but I'm not a "strong" atheist, the kind of guy who asserts with 100% certainty that there is no God. But let's pretend, briefly, that I am, that I believe that there is definitely no God. I would have my own reasons for believing that God definitely doesn't exist, and I'd have thought them through, very thoroughly (I'm very introspective). So then I try to explain these reasons to other people but they're just not hearing it -- almost literally, since I can tell they're not even listening. Lots of people, when presented with information that contradicts their beliefs, just turn their brains off. (I'm guilty of this sometimes. I think everyone is.) In such a case, I'm probably going to conclude that my interlocutor's belief in God is, well, stupid. Of course, you can reverse this scenario: I could be a Christian explaining my beliefs to a stubborn atheist. The particular beliefs don't matter here so much as the reasons.

But even if my interlocutor has a stupid belief, it doesn't make him stupid. He could be a brilliant scientist. He could be a skillful software engineer. He could, of course, be stupid, but it wouldn't be because of his faith. If you're going to judge a man by his beliefs, judge him by all his beliefs, not just the one. (For example, it's fine to think Jack Chick is stupid, since enough of his beliefs are obviously stupid. ) If you say something like "creationists are stupid", that's a poor choice of words (though one I'll admit to having used a couple of times). Lots of creationists are perfectly smart people. If you say "creationism is a stupid belief", then maybe.

Do I think we should suddenly go around calling other people's beliefs stupid? No, of course not. Again, I remind you that I'm using the word "stupid" to make a point. It's a word that a lot of people take personally even when it's not directed at them as a person. My point here is basically that people shouldn't take it personally. Everybody's going to have their beliefs called stupid, with or without justification, at one point or another. We should just shrug it off -- or even laugh it off. Some people can't just shrug it off, of course, which is why we shouldn't run around calling beliefs "stupid", but we should be able to shrug it off.

So, separate yourself from your beliefs. Try looking at them from a different point of view. If somebody tells a joke that offends you because it attacks your belief, try instead to find a reason to laugh at it. And, hey, everybody believes at least one stupid thing. But if you call me stupid... now them's fightin' words.

- Kef

I sometimes think that there are real Blue Men in the world, not just the characters in Blue Man Group.

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Good points. Though, I'm a firm believer in standing up for one's faith rather than sitting idley by and shrugging it off. Keep in mind, if people just shrug things off, others will believe that it is OK to make fun of other beliefs. Just keep your comments about somone's beliefs to yourself. This way no one is affended. I do agree, however, with the idea that stupid beliefs don't make stupid people. Some of the smartest people out there have some of the most retarded beliefs in the universe, but have other good beliefs to counter them. It's stupid people that make stupid beliefs, not the other way around.

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Ragnarök is coming: Cthulhu is on your side!

See for me I think breaking down those walls and being able to accept being made fun of then make fun of others. My friend is a very big catholic andi'm always pulling preist jokes on him, while he jokes about me growing up to be the next Chairman Mao. it's that kind of thing that helps every accept that people are different, but those differences don't mean anything.

or maybe I just have a stupd belief.

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TIRES TIRES TIRES

I get the feeling Furrykef is trying to say "If someone makes an insulting post about religion, you shouldn't be offended "

To which I very sorely disagree. Some things, such as one's beliefs about God, are intrinsic (or nearly so) parts of what makes a person whom they are. And there are people--we've seen them here and have seen them talked about--who are all too willing to not only judge whether or not things such as religion are "stupid," but whether or not such people are stupid as well.

To be honest I equate hostility towards religion and religious people--even attacks on the intellguence of them or their beliefs--to be analagous to mocking someone on the basis of their race or nationality, or saying things like "(nationality/race)s are stupid!" It's not right, and people shouldn't have to sit there and find a way to laugh at it. When someone attacks something that makes up a part of you, invariably it will affect you. You should stand up to people like that and straighten them out!

Also, blurring the line between religious beliefs and other more worldly beliefs disturbs me, especially when people start talking about "stupid beliefs." I've certainly seen other people come right out and say "religion is supertition." But there's a problem with that.

Superstition is belief about something is true even when evidence clearly shows otherwise--so strongly that there can be no doubt. Thinking the moon is made of cheese is one--we have rocks from the Moon missions, and it's quite obvious cheese is a processed food made from beings that couldn't possibly live in space, much less find the sustenance and people willing to milk them and create a huge ball of cheese.

Faith is/can be defined as the affirmation of a belief even when there's little evidence to support it (but it hasn't been clearly disproven either), or if such a thing is untested/untestable. Belief in God is probably the best example. If you believe in God, and you believe He's responsible for creation of the universe (or possibly even bigger theoretical spheres of existence), He's obviously somebody you won't find in a house next door--and He'll only show himself if he feels like it. You can't prove or disprove He exists in a case like that, and He's probably not going to be put off by people in his creation going "God-believers are stupid! " ... in fact, I bet He'd probably laugh.

So to sum up:

Superstition is belief in something clearly untrue.

Faith is belief in something untested.


But is it okay to throw the word "superstition" around? Me, personally, I don't. I think the word has been 'tainted' by anti-religious militants (in terms of religion) and hostile skeptics (in terms of other things, like pseudoscience) as a cheap insult to fling at a subject that, by definition, is not superstitious at all.

We need a new word for things like this.

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i like your point and i have to agree that the discussion and occasional fighting/comedy all that type of thing helps us accept how we are different. if you make fun of someone's beliefs and they make fun of yours, especially if it's all with an overall feeling of understanding then i like that. it when you start to say: "my beliefs are sacred but yours are just plain laughable" that you run into some serious trouble.

Edit: in response to trev, i think you may be right about coming up with a word for this. antropologists use the blanket term "belief systems" to encompass western religion, eastern religion, practices formerly called superstition, idol worship, sacred objects, etc. because it makes no value judgement. it simply says: this is something that someone believes. i like the term belief systems for that reason, if we're talking about seriousness.

like i said earlier: if we're talking about poking fun at each other (especially those you know for real, not just forum people) it all MUST be okay because by excluding certain things you implicitly say that something is better than another or whatever. y'all get what i mean.

Do you even read posts before you get offended? He wasn't specific about any beliefs, and even said that people can call HIS beliefs stupid.

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Boy you're really eager to jump on me for anything, aren't you? "Look Out, Here Comes Trev-MUN Part III - He's Easily Offended And Doesn't Read Your Posts!"

Unfortunately, I was not offended by what furrykef said. Yes, I know, you were just hoping to expose some sort of weak-skinned, easily offended, post-skimming nature in me, but I'm afraid I'll have to dash your hopes.

Or more to the point: Did you even read his post?



My post focused on why I think this is a bad way to treat people who are eager to bash beliefs as stupid when they're not clearly disproven.

In a way this kind of thing applies to people like you and furrykef. I tend to consider atheism a type of "religion" if only because its people, the way they organize, and the makeup and behavior of said people are close to or identical to those of actual religions.

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You really want me to be out to get you, don't you?


I'm not trying to expose any flaws you may or may not have. You're just very quick to jump on furrykef if it even looks like he might be bashing religion.

Yes. I don't accuse people of doing something I'm guilty of myself.

It still doesn't change the fact that furrykef WASN'T saying "If someone makes an insulting post about religion, you shouldn't be offended "

Who, atheists? Nice try. I'm agnostic.
EDIT: Trev-MUN edited his post, so I edited mine.

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Oh, I don't want you to. You've already demonstrated you like to do that, quite a few times.



Not really. I guess I'll have to put a disclaimer label on my posts. Seems like this happened over in the Illegal Immigrants thread--until clarified I guess people thought I was bashing furrykef when I was really talking about COLA.



Then you should have had little reason to go posting "Did you even read posts before you get offended?" when it's very clear what my post was talking about, and even doubly so when I demonstrate that yes, I DID read his post by quoting the relevant text.



o rly? Angosticism is more like "I have no opinion on whether God exists or does not, because it's impossible to know."

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I'm the same way to anybody who puts words in somebody else's mouth.

Who says it's impossible to change what you believe? I eventually realized that it IS impossible to know, and that I shouldn't have an opinion either way. And you don't have to believe in God to be agnostic, so that link really didn't help your argument out.

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Which means you shouldn't have any quarrel with me then, shouldn't it? After all, my feelings and perceptions--clearly labeled--are not putting words in someone's mouth. When I say "I get the feeling that [x]" that's the subtext I got from their post, and they can either confirm or deny whether or not that was a correct observation. It's different from saying they came outright and say that, isn't it?

Of course, I can also demonstrate when possible what has been strongly implied.

This can't be why you jump on me if you already made several snarky comments trailing posts I've made in threads dealing with religion, but never involved furrykef--not to mention several others snarking at me but written in reply to others.



Of course people can change their beliefs. That you changed yours was unknown to me, because I hadn't seen you say otherwise.



Let's see ... you're saying that the link doesn't help my argument out because you don't have to believe in God to be agnostic. How does "no opinion" equate to "belief in?" Because that's what I said in the last post.

To be an agnostic, you can't say "I believe God exists" or "I don't believe God exists." It means "I have no opinion, I cannot agree or disagree on the subject because it's impossible to know otherwise."

I'm toastpainting now.



Well, I mean, more a word for beliefs that're clearly proven wrong. Using the word "superstition" can easily offend people if they don't know that the word has historically been used to mean "beliefs in something clearly disproven," because it's often been used by anti-religious types as an insult to religious beliefs, claiming it's all "gobbldegook" or whatnot.

I guess this is just another part of the language treadmill, requiring new words to describe something when old words have been suborned for other intentions.

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well i suppose my point and the point of the millions of anthropoligists who use this term is that who on earth are you to talk of proving certain people's belief systems? im not going to screw with yours and people in africa aren't going to screw with mine so why not just say, without judgement that africans belive something that is just as valid to them as yours are to you and mine to me even if they DO seem like gobbledeygook to you and i, even if they are totally counter-intuitive and yes, even wrong what matters is that it is clearly valid to them.

please don't drag me into the back and forth going on here, though.

Unless, of course, there really is a true religion here on earth.

Of course, not many believe that anymore.

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I think we're on two different wavelengths here, dude ... I get the feeling you think I'm saying religious-related beliefs clearly disproven should be called superstition. I'm not saying that.

For the most part, I don't think a lot of the core religious beliefs can be clearly disproven. Most said core beliefs concern the existence of God (or gods), other planes of existence, afterlives, reincarnation, etc.

Therefore, I classify those as beliefs that depend on faith, not superstition.

When I say "beliefs in things that are clearly disproven" I mean things like believing that the moon is made of cheese. I keep bringing this up because it's the only real thing I can think of that exemplifies what I'm taking about. These kind of beliefs are necessarily dealing with the present world, not anything beyond.

Really, we're on the same side here.

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right on i gotcha there, trev.

I think it all could go back to the intent behind someone's words. I think FurryKef might have meant that if two people of differing beliefs are able to be mature enough to poke fun at each other, then they are going to be mature enough to understand that a joke is just a joke--even if in the form of what appears to be an "insult"...Like when I joke with my friends--who fill the spectrum of very liberal Democrats to highly Fundamentalist conservtive Christian Republicans--that "God hates gays and minorities and anyone who isn't a right-wing Fundie"...simply because we're all mature enough to know that, while a very select number of Fundamentalists may actually think that, none of us truly do, and we think it's funny. People who are able to poke fun at themselves and their own beliefs, I think, shows a high level of maturity--they're able to seriously believe in what they believe, but are still down-to-earth enough to see the potential humor that can stem from their beliefs or from other believers of the same belief.

So if someone is REALLY being ignorant and intolerant by directly insulting you or your beliefs, I would say to perhaps be the bigger man and say something along the lines of, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I disagree for my own reasons," then--if necessary--go ahead and fill them in on any factual inconsistencies they may be presenting in their insult (such as, "All Christians hate gays!" or something silly like that).

Oh...and using Trev-MUN's definition of a "superstition," I'd just like to add that I think Scientology is borderline superstition, simply because we can trace its roots to a science fiction author...and I must admit that while I really try to be tolerant of other people's beliefs, and while I still believe that people have the right to believe whatever they want--no matter how silly it is, and as long as it doesn't hurt anyone--I find myself still finding Scientology in general quite laughable.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I hope you don't mind if I destroy the seriousness and venom in this thread but I used to walk around all day thinking of a brickwall so nobody could find out my secret desires and ambitions by mind reading.
That silly Lu Bu...

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I used to think my kindergarten teacher was made of peanut butter.

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I used to think mine was a chicken nugget. I found out other wise.

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Well, my post is broader than that, but it is a point I wanted to make.



"Who", not "whom". (Sorry, nothing personal, it's just that using "whom" for "who" gets on my nerves a bit.)

Mm, I disagree. Is my atheism an intrinsic part of who I am? I was mostly the same person as an ignorant agnostic, a Christian, a better informed agnostic, and finally as an agnostic atheist. I understand, of course, that people may have stronger feelings than I do. But I don't believe that having stronger feelings would make an otherwise silly belief any less silly (no matter what the belief is).



I don't see how. People choose to be Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist. They don't choose to be black or to be American.



Well, from the point of view of a non-religious person, there's no line.



That's a valid distinction, but I think we're straying from my point... I'm not really talking about faith versus superstition. I'm talking more about how beliefs are perceived in various points of view, and more about reasons for having beliefs than beliefs themselves, and also (I should have stated this more explicitly) more about how humans are fallible and so, therefore, are their beliefs.

- Kef

It helps if you care to notice I was talking about beliefs that are matters of faith. Some people are deeply rooted in that, though I know you know that. I reiterate my point--if you go around insulting those kind of beliefs, seeing as they are not superstitious, then you shouldn't tell people "Oh, laugh it off. " when they get offended.



Actually they can, at least in the nationality sense. Others might have dual or multiple citizenship. Some even forgo nationality altogether and consider themselves world citizens.

Given that, your saying this does not change or refute what I say. Just because someone can change their mind, or be re-naturalized as the case may be, doesn't make it okay to insult people or the grouping for any of that. Insuting what makes up a person (such as beliefs of faith for example, not just other demographical qualities) is going to insult them. It doesn't mean said grouping should just find a way to laugh in the face of people who can be rather hateful and mean spirited levying such insults.

It should be obvious by now that I'm talking about people who are not friends by any means and harbor intolerance or prejudices towards said grouping.



So, are you saying that beliefs about things untested (existence of God/gods, reincarnation, e.t.c.) are the same as beliefs about things which have been proven wrong?

If so, I think that's rather arrogant and presumptous. Especially considering that atheists are, in a sense, exercising beliefs of faith--having faith that there is no divine creator.

And yes, I know you are one of the "weak atheists" but this point is general in nature, like yours is.



You did devote several paragraphs to making this point, however, saying that a person's beliefs should be considered wholly seperate from the person. Your concluding paragraph, too.

I'm taking a nail file to that point by saying "That's not possible in many cases where such a belief makes up a core part of that person, especially on matters of faith, which is often unfairly grouped together with beliefs that can be or have been proven wrong (or right)."

My ultimate point is, in cases like that people shouldn't be expected to just sit there and try to laugh off the offense. They should stand up to the person and educate them or just turn it back on them.

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